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The Impact Of Ongoing Science Professional Development On Standardized Assessments Of Student Achievement, Leah Torres Jan 2017

The Impact Of Ongoing Science Professional Development On Standardized Assessments Of Student Achievement, Leah Torres

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify how ongoing science professional development impact students' achievement on standardized assessments. The students' end-of-year assessment and State Science Assessment data were collected from a Central Florida school district. The student data were divided into categories based on teachers' participation in on-going professional development opportunities. The teachers were categorized by the number of types of professional development opportunities they attended. The mean assessment scores of students whose all teachers did or did not participate were calculated, and t-tests were run to find the significance between the means. There was no significance in the …

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Predicting Gun Ownership In America: Birth Cohort, Political Views, And Attitudes Towards Gun Control Legislation, Jared Adams Jan 2017

Predicting Gun Ownership In America: Birth Cohort, Political Views, And Attitudes Towards Gun Control Legislation, Jared Adams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With mass shootings occurring with frightening regularity, research into gun ownership behavior is becoming increasingly important for public policy creation and public safety. While extant research tells us that firearm ownership is woven deep into the historical fabric of American culture, scholarship has yet to fully explore predictors for gun ownership. Employing 2015 Pew Research Center political survey data, this study examines the predictive effects of birth cohort, political ideology, and attitudes towards gun control legislation on gun ownership, with and without controls, using hierarchical binary logistic regression models. The presented models examine three separate cohorts: The Millennials, Generation X, …

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Abortion Attitudes And Subjective Religiosity: Examining A Fourfold Typology, Christopher Guido Jan 2017

Abortion Attitudes And Subjective Religiosity: Examining A Fourfold Typology, Christopher Guido

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is an exploratory study that examins the relationship between religious persons and attitudes toward legal abortion. This study presents a fourfold typology of respondents: (1) pro-choice, but not religious, (2) pro-choice and religious, (3) pro-life, but not religious, and (4) pro-life and religious. This study looks for characteristics of respondents in these categories. As previous research was examined on the relationship between religion and abortion attitudes, the question on what social characteristics make up the four categories of pro-choice and pro-life respondents was examined. Findings show that social characteristics of respondents vary across categories of subjective religiosity and attitudes …

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Female Offenders Of Intimate Partner Homicide: Victim, Offender, And Case Characteristics, Alec Szalewski Jan 2017

Female Offenders Of Intimate Partner Homicide: Victim, Offender, And Case Characteristics, Alec Szalewski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Intimate partner homicide (IPH) represents between 10% and 16% of all homicides (Catalano, Smith, Snyder, & Rand, 2009; Cooper & Smith, 2011; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2011; Gruenewald & Pridemore, 2009). Yet, research on gender-specific IPH offending is lacking at the individual offense level, especially when a woman is the offender. The majority of the research assessing gender-specific IPH offending examines motivations, as well as situational and structural variables. For instance, motivations may include self-defense or jealousy and situational variables may include employment status or past criminal histories. Structural variables include macro-level concepts such as poverty, education, or income. The …

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Dating Violence Victimization And Substance Use: Do Genes Play A Role?, Alexis Yohros Jan 2017

Dating Violence Victimization And Substance Use: Do Genes Play A Role?, Alexis Yohros

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dating violence (DV) victimization in adolescence has been shown to be predictive of both negative emotions and delinquent behavior later in life. However, research that delves into DV victimization and subsequent outcomes, such as deviant behavior, is largely atheoretical. Robert Agnew's general strain theory (GST) provides a theoretical framework to address this limitation. In focusing on negative interactions with others, the theory posits that strain produces negative affect states which leads to deviant or criminal coping. Prior research has identified victimization as a strain, a type of noxious stimuli, which is significantly related to negative emotionality, crime, and deviance. I …

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An Examination Of Inclusive Practices For Junior Secondary Students With Learning Disabilities In Gaborone, Botswana, Samantha Mrstik Jan 2017

An Examination Of Inclusive Practices For Junior Secondary Students With Learning Disabilities In Gaborone, Botswana, Samantha Mrstik

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The country of Botswana has passed laws to support the human rights of their citizens. In accordance with the UN's guidelines, Botswana's human rights initiatives, and the international movement towards inclusive education, inclusive educational reform is taking place. In this ethnographic study, the researcher has examined the inclusive practices currently in place to support junior secondary students with learning disabilities (LD) in Gaborone, Botswana over a four-month period. Participants included administrators, general and special education teachers, and students with LD. The themes of routine, academic activities, classroom life, and accommodations for students with LD emerged upon analysis and are discussed …

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Role Ambiguity: Defining The Elusive Role Of The Special Education Teacher Who Works In Inclusive Settings, Dena Slanda Jan 2017

Role Ambiguity: Defining The Elusive Role Of The Special Education Teacher Who Works In Inclusive Settings, Dena Slanda

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological study examined the lived experiences of special education teachers who worked in inclusive settings. Given the increasing number of students with disabilities receiving special education services in the general education classroom (U.S. Department of Education, 2016), there is a critical need to understand the dynamic role of a special education teacher who works in inclusive settings. Federal mandates have required special education teachers working in inclusive settings to rethink their roles (McLeskey, Landers, Hoppey, & Williamson, 2011) and restructure their approach to providing specially-designed services. Further, these roles are dependent on those who interpret and implement policy and …

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Childhood Maltreatment And Mother-Child Attachment: Examining Interactions Among Attachment, Depression, Reflective Functioning, Parenting Behaviors, And Young Children's Outcomes In Mothers With Histories Of Childhood Maltreatment, Maria Khan Jan 2017

Childhood Maltreatment And Mother-Child Attachment: Examining Interactions Among Attachment, Depression, Reflective Functioning, Parenting Behaviors, And Young Children's Outcomes In Mothers With Histories Of Childhood Maltreatment, Maria Khan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although previous research identified mothers who experienced childhood maltreatment as exhibiting an especially heightened risk for attachment difficulties with their own young children, evidence regarding the mechanisms of action driving this relationship have been lacking. Thus, the current study introduced mothers' depressive symptoms and the novel construct of reflective functioning as potential mediators to help explain the relationship between mothers' childhood maltreatment experiences and patterns of insecure (i.e., anxious, avoidant, and disorganized) mother-young child attachment. The current study included a community sample of 146 mothers with children who ranged in age from 1 1/2-to 5-years. Mothers provided ratings of their …

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Damned To Hell: The Black Church Experience For College Educated Lesbians, Gays, And Bisexuals, Edwanna Andrews Jan 2017

Damned To Hell: The Black Church Experience For College Educated Lesbians, Gays, And Bisexuals, Edwanna Andrews

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite increased acceptance nationally towards same-sex sexuality, intolerance within the Black Church against those who identify as lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) continues to persist. As one of the most important institutions in the African American community, the significance of the Black Church makes the religious experience particularly influential. LGBs frequently experience homonegativity in the Black Church in the form of homophobic laced sermons, Microaggressions, and church gossip. The stigma LGBs encounter around homosexuality in the Black Church has created a dissonance between their religious beliefs, faith, and sexual identity. This study explores the multifaceted experience of lesbian, gay, and …

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Implication Of Alpha-Synuclein Transcriptional Regulation And Mutagenesis In The Pathogenesis Of Sporadic Parkinson's Disease, Sambuddha Basu Jan 2017

Implication Of Alpha-Synuclein Transcriptional Regulation And Mutagenesis In The Pathogenesis Of Sporadic Parkinson's Disease, Sambuddha Basu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Parkinson's disease (PD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disorder characterized by selective loss of dopaminergic neurons (DA neurons) from the substantia nigra (SN) of the mid-brain. PD is classically associated with cytoplasmic inclusion of aggregated proteins called Lewy bodies. alpha-synuclein (α-SYN) coded by the gene SNCA, is one of the major components of Lewy body and neurite along with several other proteins like ubiquitin, neurofilament to name a few. PD is broadly categorized into two groups based on their incidence of occurrence. First is the familial form that occurs due to known genetic aberrations like mutation, gene duplication/triplication in important PD …

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Discovery And Characterization Of Antimalarials With Novel Mechanisms Of Action, Bracken Roberts Jan 2017

Discovery And Characterization Of Antimalarials With Novel Mechanisms Of Action, Bracken Roberts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Malaria kills over 500,000 people each year and over a third of the global population is at risk of infection. Though the human race has been fighting the malaria war for over 4,000 years and we have made great strides in eliminating malaria from many countries, we are treading on the edge of what could be another malaria epidemic primarily due to widespread drug resistance. There are documented cases of resistance for every known antimalarial in use today, including Artemisinins. It is critical that we open a new window of discovery in development of next generation antimalarials that circumvent current …

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A Phenomenological Study On The Implementation Of Louise Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory And Its Impact On Teacher-Efficacy For Literacy Instruction In An Online Environment, Marcus Vu Jan 2017

A Phenomenological Study On The Implementation Of Louise Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory And Its Impact On Teacher-Efficacy For Literacy Instruction In An Online Environment, Marcus Vu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study sought to examine the teacher-efficacy for literacy instruction (TELI) of instructors who teach in an online environment. The phenomenological methodology sought to answer the following research questions: (1) What pedagogical practices do instructors use to provide literacy instruction in an online environment? (2) How do instructors perceive their TELI in an online environment? and (3) What impact, if any, will a Professional Learning Community (PLC) focused on Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory have on TELI in an online environment? The study consisted of a group of seven online instructors. The researcher the acting as facilitator administered the initial interviews …

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The Contribution Of Educators' Levels Of Inspiration And Compassion For Others To Their Degree Of Burnout, Samuel Bierbrauer Jan 2017

The Contribution Of Educators' Levels Of Inspiration And Compassion For Others To Their Degree Of Burnout, Samuel Bierbrauer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the directional relationship between educators' levels of inspiration and compassion for others to their degree of burnout. Specifically, the investigation tested the hypothesized directional relationship that educators' who report higher levels of inspiration (as measured by the Educator Inspire Scale, EIS; Lambie, Barden, & Bierbrauer, 2016) and compassion for others (as measured by the Compassion for Others Scale; COS; Pommier, 2010) would score at lower levels of burnout (as measured by the three components of burnout [emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, personal accomplishment] on the Maslach Burnout Inventory – Educator Survey; MBI-ES; Maslach, et al., 1996). In addition, the …

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An Exploratory Mixed Methods Study Of Student Awareness In Expressing Emotions And Identifying The Emotions Of Others: Through The Mirror Looking Glass, Christine K. Duff Jan 2017

An Exploratory Mixed Methods Study Of Student Awareness In Expressing Emotions And Identifying The Emotions Of Others: Through The Mirror Looking Glass, Christine K. Duff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research was to determine how the self-awareness process of expressing emotions and identifying emotions of others was impacted during a mirror-based intervention for first grade students from inclusive classrooms. The study investigated the extent that a two-way mirror display helped eight students increase their level of awareness when expressing emotions and identifying the emotions of others. Traditional assessment measures for assessing empathy and accuracy in perception of emotions of others have relied on binary, forced choice responses that have not addressed a student's level of awareness, or increased awareness in identifying the emotions of others. Further, …

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Analysis Of The Effects Of Formative Assessment In Promoting Transfer Of Learning In An Undergraduate General Microbiology Laboratory Course, Andrea Rediske Jan 2017

Analysis Of The Effects Of Formative Assessment In Promoting Transfer Of Learning In An Undergraduate General Microbiology Laboratory Course, Andrea Rediske

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The undergraduate microbiology lab serves an important role in establishing a foundation of best practices in aseptic technique and infection control for pre-medical, pre-nursing, pre-pharmacy, or pre-allied health students. The high incidence of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) in the US and evidence in the literature of less effective implementation of proper aseptic technique among apprentice doctors and nursing students suggests that more effective transfer of learning could improve implementation of these procedures in the clinical setting. The research described in this study aimed to assess learning transfer as it applied to aseptic techniques and infection control skills learned in the undergraduate …

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Examining The Role Of Cardiovascular And Cognitive Fitness In Goal-Directed Aiming Across The Lifespan, Michael Rupp Jan 2017

Examining The Role Of Cardiovascular And Cognitive Fitness In Goal-Directed Aiming Across The Lifespan, Michael Rupp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Older adults experience more difficulties completing goal directed movements than younger adults. The reasons for this have not been completely elucidated within the research literature; however, it is thought that age related movement differences are due to at least one of three possible reasons. The current study investigated the influence of these three hypotheses: (1) biomechanical changes (limbs, joints, or muscles), (2) sensory feedback processing ability, or (3) differences in overall movement strategy on movement kinematics. Additionally, physical activi-ty is known to improve both physical and cognitive functioning and staying cognitively active may also attenuate age-related declines in cognitive ability; …

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Rhetoric Of Imagery: Gendering And Consumption Throughout Interwar American Advertisment, Natalie Delgado Jan 2017

Rhetoric Of Imagery: Gendering And Consumption Throughout Interwar American Advertisment, Natalie Delgado

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Interwar American advertising rose alongside new levels of hygiene, personal appearance, and technology in order to sell their products to target audiences. Despite the abundance of scholarship on media and gender, few studies have examined the gendered techniques through which interwar advertisers communicated with consumers in response to changing social norms and economic stability. The question this thesis explores is how these changes and communication shifted in response to consumer culture and how advertisers utilized early market research and persuasion techniques to target their audiences. Building on the studies of gender, consumption, and identity, this thesis examines the relationship between …

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Effects Of Symbol Type On Naming And Identification Of Graphic Symbols By Typically Developing Three, Four, Five And Six-Year Olds Children., Pamela Resnick Jan 2017

Effects Of Symbol Type On Naming And Identification Of Graphic Symbols By Typically Developing Three, Four, Five And Six-Year Olds Children., Pamela Resnick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Speech-language pathologists and educators face unique challenges in assessing the language skills of children with complex communication needs due to the wide array of impairments with which these individuals present. For example, most receptive language assessment tools require that children either point to or label line drawings to determine whether or not they comprehend the depicted concepts; task demands such as these preclude administering such assessment tools with children who are unable to physically point to or verbally label presented stimuli. In light of these challenges, the use of eye tracking technologies has become particularly appealing since this alternate response …

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The Coping Assessment For Bereavement And Loss Experiences (Cable): Development And Validation, Anne Crunk Jan 2017

The Coping Assessment For Bereavement And Loss Experiences (Cable): Development And Validation, Anne Crunk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The loss of a loved one through death is a virtually inescapable part of the human experience and one that can elicit marked psychological and physical distress on the part of the survivor. However, not all individuals who lose a loved one cope with their grief in the same way. Variation in the duration and intensity of grief reactions among mourners is well supported, with 10-15% of the bereaved population experiencing a protracted, debilitating, and sometimes life-threatening grief response known as complicated grief (CG). However, most grievers respond to loss with relative resilience, demonstrating an ability to sustain reasonably stable …

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Socialization Of Engineering Doctoral Students In The U.S: A Phenomenological Study, Sona Gholizadeh Jan 2017

Socialization Of Engineering Doctoral Students In The U.S: A Phenomenological Study, Sona Gholizadeh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to describe the lived experiences of doctoral engineering students' socialization with their advisors and colleagues. Using snowballing sampling methods, eleven students with research or teaching assistantship from three engineering programs from a large University in the Southeastern US agreed to participate. Face-to-face interviews were audio-recorded, descriptively transcribed, and analyzed using a variation of Colaizzi's method. Participants experienced difficulty adjusting to the workplace norms of the PhD program, which some did not start with clear expectations. Some participants lacked work experience before starting, but were thankful for support from more experienced doctoral students. Most participants …

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Using Molecular Genetic And Demographic Tools To Improve Management Of Ex Situ Avian Populations, Gina Ferrie Jan 2017

Using Molecular Genetic And Demographic Tools To Improve Management Of Ex Situ Avian Populations, Gina Ferrie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Small populations, specifically those that are isolated from others, are more prone to extinction than larger inter-connected populations. The risks that these small isolated populations face include loss of genetic diversity due to founder effects and inbreeding due to population bottlenecks, as well as demographic uncertainty due to fluctuating fecundity and mortality rates and impacts of external environmental factors. Ex situ populations, including those managed as conservation breeding programs with species recovery aims, as well as those that do not have reintroduction goals but are managed for long term population sustainability, suffer from the same extinction risks as small and …

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Health Behaviors In Military Veterans With And Without Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Emily Kitsmiller Jan 2017

Health Behaviors In Military Veterans With And Without Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Emily Kitsmiller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A link between posttraumatic stress disorder and health behaviors, such as exercise, alcohol, smoking, and caffeine has been suggested. However, it is unknown whether veterans with combat-related PTSD differ from combat veterans without PTSD and whether health behaviors change over the course of exposure therapy for PTSD or differ based on PTSD severity. This study examined the relationship between health behaviors and PTSD. More specifically, combat veterans with and without PTSD were compared across self-reported levels of alcohol use, smoking, exercise, and caffeine. Health behaviors of combat veterans with PTSD were compared before and after a 17-week treatment for PTSD. …

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Faculty Knowledge And Readiness In Reporting Student Victimization Disclosure And Title Ix Compliance, Abigail Malick Jan 2017

Faculty Knowledge And Readiness In Reporting Student Victimization Disclosure And Title Ix Compliance, Abigail Malick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The U.S. Department of Education and Title IX Educational Act of 1972 shaped the way institutions of higher education address and prevent student victimizations. The law originally sought to eliminate sex-based discrimination in education but has evolved to include sexual misconduct. Since the Dear Colleague Letter of 2011, the position of institutions has changed significantly in the way they address student victimization as it relates to dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking (Rosenthal, 2017). One requirement is that institutions inform and train Responsible Employees to report when a student discloses experiencing sexual misconduct, including dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking. …

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Development Of Molecular Diagnostic Tools For Mycobacterium Species, Hillary Bengtson Jan 2017

Development Of Molecular Diagnostic Tools For Mycobacterium Species, Hillary Bengtson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the development of diagnostic tools for mycobacteria using hybridization based technologies including binary deoxyribozyme (BiDz) sensors and microarrays. The genus Mycobacterium, is a diverse group of bacteria containing 150+ species including M. tuberculosis (M.tb) and non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) which exhibit a range of pathogenicity, drug susceptibility and growth characteristics. M. tuberculosis (M.tb) is the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB) and the leading cause of infectious disease related deaths worldwide. The control of TB is limited by the lack of sensitive and specific diagnostic tools available at the point of care (POC). The studies presented here illustrate …

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Natural Disasters, Rebecca Cobb Jan 2017

Natural Disasters, Rebecca Cobb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Natural Disasters is a collection of twelve short stories that feature a variety of narrators as they interact with the ones they love. In these stories, characters experience puberty, friendship, love, loss, trauma, and the everyday magic of living as they fight to master their own failings. Those lucky enough find solace in the forgiving beauty of nature, while others succumb to the untamable power of its disasters. This thesis is useful, important, and unique as it focuses on the stories of a variety of characters, mostly women and children, and displays the beauty and fearsome power of nature as …

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Targeted Therapy Development For Neurofibromatosis Type 2, Marisa Fuse Jan 2017

Targeted Therapy Development For Neurofibromatosis Type 2, Marisa Fuse

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) is a debilitating disease characterized by the formation of bilateral vestibular schwannomas, which compress the vestibulocochlear nerve and cause deafness. Additional peripheral schwannomas, meningiomas and ependymomas may also form. NF2 is caused by mutations in the NF2 gene, resulting in the loss of function of the merlin tumor suppressor. Merlin functions in multiple signaling pathways and its absence in Schwann cells yields increased cell survival and proliferation, thereby causing schwannoma formation. First line treatment for NF2 is watchful waiting and surgical removal of tumors, potentially resulting in facial paralysis and deafness. To date, there are no …

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An Examination Of Post Implementation Adoption Of Business Intelligence Technologies And The Role Of Training Programs During This Process, Juliana Gully Jan 2017

An Examination Of Post Implementation Adoption Of Business Intelligence Technologies And The Role Of Training Programs During This Process, Juliana Gully

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research study sought to determine if there was any difference in the perception of training modality delivery between participants who attended a face-to-face (F2F) training session or participated in blended training that supported business intelligence (BI) technology adoption. There is minimal information available identifying how training can influence an individual's intention to fully adopt BI technology into daily work processes. Identification of key factors influencing training modalities' effect on technology adoption promotes strategies that allow trainers to better facilitate and develop content that can help organizations to integrating BI technologies into their workflow. This study analyzed survey responses that …

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Power Effects On Consumer Well-Being: Two Essays On The Power Effects On Donation And Material/Experiential Consumption, Yue Liu Jan 2017

Power Effects On Consumer Well-Being: Two Essays On The Power Effects On Donation And Material/Experiential Consumption, Yue Liu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Power is a fundamental concept in social science (Russell 1938), which has gained much academic attention in various disciplines. Two essays of this dissertation examine the theoretical and practical implications of power effects on donation decisions and material/experiential consumption. The first essay demonstrates power's moderating effect on the relationship between publicity and donation. Specifically, it is proposed that powerful people tend to donate more in public (vs. private) situation, whereas powerless people do not show such a difference. This effect is driven by people's concern about self-presentation in a donation scenario. Additionally, this effect only holds when people strongly believe …

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An Analysis Of Sustained Positive Behavior Intervention Support In Florida And Related Disciplinary Outcomes, Kristin Sweeney Jan 2017

An Analysis Of Sustained Positive Behavior Intervention Support In Florida And Related Disciplinary Outcomes, Kristin Sweeney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the outcomes associated with sustained school-wide Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS) programs in the State of Florida and the impact the length of time of implementation of these programs had on those outcomes. The link between discipline outcomes, as measured by the number of office discipline referrals (ODRs) written over the course of a school year per 100 students and sustained implementation of PBIS systems with documented fidelity, as well as the connection between discipline outcomes for subgroups of students and sustained PBIS programs were examined for schools in the initial implementation …

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The Effect Of Repeated Sprint Training In Hypoxia And Beta-Alanine Supplementation On Exercise Performance, Ran Wang Jan 2017

The Effect Of Repeated Sprint Training In Hypoxia And Beta-Alanine Supplementation On Exercise Performance, Ran Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the synergistic effects of repeated sprint training in hypoxia (RSH) and beta-alanine supplementation on performance in recreationally active men. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the following groups: hypoxia + beta-alanine (HB, n = 10), hypoxia + placebo (HP, n = 9), normoxia + beta-alanine (NB, n = 11) and normoxia + placebo (NP, n = 8). All participants completed a total of 8 training sessions (each consisting of 3 sets of 5 × 10-s sprints at a resistance of 7.5% of body mass, with 20-s rest intervals between sprints) …

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